Earlier offer for talks on Mount Kumgang still valid: official

SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Yonhap) -- Responding to a recent North Korean report on talks over South Korean assets at a mountain resort in the North, a Seoul official said Sunday the South's earlier proposal for a meeting still stands. "Our government on July 25 proposed a round of talks with North Korea to discuss issues regarding tourism at the Mount Kumgang resort," the unification ministry official said. "And that offer still remains valid." In the Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan, Kim Kwang-yun, director of the North's Mount Kumgang International Tourism Leadership Bureau, said the talks could be held anytime if the South Korean officials show willingness to break the deadlock. His comment came as the North expelled South Korean workers from the mountain resort and disposed of all South Korean assets there in anger over the suspension of the inter-Korean joint tour program. The South Korean official noted the contradictory nature of the article. "In the story, the North spoke about the need for talks," the official said. "But at the same time, it also repeated its previous claims and demanded South Korean companies follow its unilateral steps." The official said Seoul also recognizes the need to hold talks with the North, but Pyongyang must first withdraw its action on South Korean assets. South Korea halted the tour program at the resort, a key symbol of reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula, following the 2008 shooting death of a tourist by a North Korean soldier near the resort. The tour program had been a major source of cash for the impoverished North. South Korea has begun to ask foreign countries not to invest or engage in tourism activities at the mountain resort as part of its moves to protect its property rights at the resort.